


Open Up the Flood

by gabolange



Category: Scott & Bailey
Genre: Female Friendship, Galentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 12:47:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3382064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabolange/pseuds/gabolange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel Bailey grows up, a little bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Open Up the Flood

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for runawaynun on the occasion of Galentine's Day 2015.

The first thing Rachel does after Gill retires is request a transfer. Janet is about to leave, but more than that, the thing with Will Pemberton might be a thing after all, and Rachel doesn’t want anyone, anywhere to think that she slept her way to the top.

“You couldn’t do this last time around?” Will asks as she signs the papers.

Rachel shakes her head. “You know it’s more complicated than that.”

“You wanted to work for Gill.” Rachel nods as Will continues. “And that was more important than our relationship?”

She looks him square in the eye. “It was.”

**

She is assigned as the sergeant in the Human Exploitation unit of South Manchester. Rachel likes it because there is a female Chief Superintendent and a serious problem to solve; renaming Vice to something more politically correct hasn’t changed the social landscape of the neighborhood.

But sometimes Human Exploitation is worse than Major Incidents, because more often than not the victims are alive, broken and fighting against everyone and everything they see. Rachel meets Janet for drinks nursing a black eye and a scratched face.

“Did you get in a row with a cat?” Janet asks.

Rachel snorts. “Vic thinks we’re there to take her from her john—which we are. Can’t imagine a more stable life than the one she’s got.”

Janet leans in to inspect the deep red rows on Rachel’s face. “She had a good manicure, I presume,” Janet says, but brushes Rachel’s cheek with her finger. “You put antiseptic on that?”

“Yes, mum,” Rachel says. “The medic even gave me antibiotic cream.”

“Good,” Janet says. “No falling ill first week of the job.”

Rachel takes a sip of her wine. “Speaking of new jobs—how is the interviewing?”

“They’re sending me to Scotland Yard for training,” Janet says, rolling her eyes a little. 

“Ooo, fancy,” Rachel says. “You’re gonna be too big for the rest of us, DC Scott.”

“Oh, stop,” Janet says. “It’s a three day course.”

“Your mum’s gonna watch the girls?”

Janet nods. “She’s happy to,” she says. “Wants me to have an adventure.”

Rachel peers at Janet over the top of her glass. “She’s not wrong. You could use a little adventure.”

“I’ll be getting into the heads of psychopaths, you know, not painting the town red.” But Janet is smiling, and Rachel thinks she should thank Gill for whatever she said to Janet—and for everything she said to Rachel—that got them here.

“Have a little fun while you’re there,” Rachel says. “For me.”

**

The work is not fun. It is as dirty as anything Rachel did on the Major Incidents Team and she comes home exhausted and strung out.

Will pours her a glass of wine, customary, but Rachel waves it off. “Not today,” she says. “Maybe not ever.”

Will sits beside her on the couch. “Alcoholic parents?”

“I wish. This kid—she’s ten, maybe, totally strung out. Maybe if it had been drugs, I’d chalk it up to bad influences or, I don’t know, Will, but her folks let her have at the whiskey when she was six and now she’s a full-blown alkie. Ten years old.”

“Young enough to be rehabilitated,” Will says, setting the wine down away from Rachel.

Rachel shrugs. “Maybe,” she says. “But what’s she got? She goes into detox, goes into care, one institution after another—what keeps her from doing the same thing when she’s of age?” She slumps against Will’s shoulder.

“Do you want to go back to Major Incidents?” Will asks.

She sits up, looks at him sharply. “No—I—what would give you that idea?”

Will rubs his forehead. “This job is hard on you.”

“Yeah,” Rachel says. “It is. But I’m damn good at it and I’m making a difference. It’s supposed to be hard.”

**

There’s a new girl on the team, a Trainee Investigator. She’s young. Brash. The trainer she’s paired with is a man who could be her grandfather, and Rachel watches the girl chafe against his gentleness.

They come bustling into the squad room, volume already too high for Rachel’s headache. “—grabbed me by the collar and pulled me out like some sort of miscreant child,” the girl complains.

“You were going get yourself shot,” her trainer says, calmly. “Your entire job right now is to listen to what I tell you and then do it.”

“But we—.”

“Stop,” Rachel says. “Both of you.” The girl turns to Rachel with wide eyes full of fire. Rachel holds up a hand. “No,” she says. “You,” she points to the girl, “if you have a real problem with your treatment, you can write up a report. Otherwise, he is absolutely right. You do what he says and when.”

“But Sergeant—.”

“No,” Rachel says. “You do not know how to keep yourself safe, you do not know how to be smart, and you will do what he tells you or you will stay here and do my paperwork. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The girl squares her shoulders and Rachel turns to the trainer. “You grabbed her by the collar?”

“Yes, I did,” he says. Rachel raises her eyebrows and he continues. “She just—we had no idea what the situation was, and she goes charging in like it’s her sworn duty to help every gal in the joint.”

Rachel crosses her arms. “Just so we’re clear,” she says. “That is her sworn duty. And yours.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the trainer says, meeting Rachel’s eyes. “But it also my duty to help her do that safely and without harm to herself, members of her team, or any of the alleged victims in the domicile.”

Rachel rubs her forehead and longs for a smoke. “Please go away,” she says.

**

When Rachel tells Gill about the girl—her name is Chloe, which Rachel will never forget for shouting it so much—Gill laughs for five minutes straight.

“It’s not that funny,” Rachel says.

Gill nods through her giggles. “Oh, kid, you have no idea.”

Rachel has some idea of why Gill is wiping mirthful tears from her cheeks, but is nowhere near ready to admit it. She lets Gill quiet and tries to move on. “Does it get easier?”

“What?” Gill asks.

“Managing people. Keeping them safe and teaching them how to be good at this and letting them, I don’t know, take stupid risks on the unlikely occasion that they’re right?”

Gill doesn’t answer right away, but instead gives Rachel a long look. “It does,” she says eventually. 

“How?” Rachel asks. “When?”

Gill looks down at her wine glass, then straight at Rachel. “You build a team of people you trust. And you trust them to be your eyes and ears, to have each other’s backs. You take calculated risks on the ones with good brains and good instincts.” Gill picks up her glass, takes a long swallow. “You’ll be wrong sometimes, of course, and there’s nothing worse than that.”

Rachel snorts. “Thanks, boss.”

“But the best days, you already know,” Gill says. “Those are the days when someone you’re teaching gets it even better than you would have.”

Rachel looks down at her hands. She hasn’t had any of those yet, but she sees it—the potential under all the bluster. The girl will be a good copper one day. Soon. 

“Hey,” Gill says, and Rachel looks up at her. “The best days,” Gill says, and it’s a compliment and a thank you all at once. 

It’s not entirely comfortable, but Rachel lets Gill’s words sit for a minute. She won’t tell anyone, definitely not Gill, probably not even Janet, but she misses Gill’s advice and guidance. Rachel’s not one for the straight and narrow, but here she is, getting Chloe and all the rest to follow her lead and do their best work and it is bloody impossible sometimes, and sometimes it’s all she can do not to throw in her cap and her sergeant’s bars and walk away. 

But she can see them coming, the best days, when she gets to raise a glass to Gill, for setting her on this path.

“Speaking of good days,” Rachel says, content to break the moment. “How’s retirement?”

Gill laughs. “I’m going on holiday!” she says.

“Oh!” Rachel says.

“Yes,” Gill says. “Off to South Africa, I am. Because why not?”

**

Rachel stays up too late, looking out the window in her bedroom. Will isn’t here tonight, and she misses him but doesn’t need him, is happy to see him tomorrow for dinner. She is too tired to work through if that means anything.

She texts Janet, mostly for the morning, because Janet is too smart to be up this late. _Tea?_

Rachel sets the phone aside and picks up her mug. The phone buzzes beside her. _Go to sleep, you._

She smiles. _You first_ , Rachel writes before rising from the chaise. Tomorrow is another day, another challenge, and coming too soon as it is. 

***


End file.
